


if you stay, i would even wait all night (or until my heart explodes)

by vaporwaves



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra (She-Ra)-centric, Character Study, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Pining, Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)'s A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaporwaves/pseuds/vaporwaves
Summary: For now, Catra has nothing to do on Horde Prime’s ship except to think. Rather than wallow in her pain, she instead indulges in her nostalgia, thinking back to simpler times when Adora was all she knew.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Kudos: 27





	if you stay, i would even wait all night (or until my heart explodes)

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to post this before the season finale so i’m sorry if it’s a little rushed, but anyway. the title is from summertime by my chemical romance, which is one of my favourite songs at the moment. i hope you all like it!

Catra had nothing on Horde Prime’s ship. There was no one on her side for now, although she was getting slowly used to that unfamiliar tang of loneliness, of being alone against her will rather than by her own choice. Those raw wounds of her betrayals — Scorpia, Double Trouble, Lonnie’s team and, most of all, _Adora_ — still stung, as fresh as the days they were made. The anger that Catra thought would cauterise those wounds, that red-hot hatred she felt overflowing from her heart, had made no difference; instead of a driving desire for revenge, all Catra felt was deep, aching pain. 

Unfamiliarly, that pain wore many faces, but all of them stung, seemingly with a vengeance against Catra that she herself understood subconsciously. Deep down inside her, in those still-vulnerable nooks and crannies that Catra would never let see the light, she was plagued by remorse, by _shame_ , by the inescapable knowledge that the betrayals that hurt so badly were her own fault. Sometimes memories came to her, short vignettes from the time before She-Ra, and the sword, and before… before Adora left. Before Adora left _her_. These memories were occasionally pleasant light relief tinted with nostalgia, but they were usually the most painful out of all of them. Catra indulged them anyway.

***

They were teenagers, probably; Catra could barely recall most of her childhood in the Horde. Her happiest memories all felt like they were ever so slightly slipping out of her grasp, like wisps of half-remembered dreams, when she tried to unlock them from wherever she’d buried them after Adora betrayed her.

It was just her and Adora, a common characteristic of Catra’s few good memories of her childhood. She hadn’t wanted any of it — her training, her separation from her family, if she even still had any, and Shadow Weaver’s constant berating of her, always telling Catra that everything she did wasn’t good enough — but the one bright spot in all of it was Adora. It had always been Adora. 

Catra returned to Adora now, in her memory if she couldn’t reconcile the chasm she’d split open in their relationship. It had been a long day of training, Shadow Weaver pushing the cadets hard toward some quota Hordak was making everyone reach, and Catra and Adora were both covered in a smattering of cuts and bruises. They were both curled up in Adora’s bunk while Adora tenderly wrapped a bandage around a gash on Catra’s wrist, her touch so light and full of care and concern it made Catra ache.

“Shadow Weaver was way too harsh on you today,” Adora spoke in a hushed tone, that fear of punishment still holding her back a little. Catra could understand that fear; as much as she tried to pretend she was above it all, she was just as terrified of Shadow Weaver as anyone else. “I should talk to her about it, or something. I can’t stand by and watch her hurt you any more.”

“Forget it. You know she won’t listen.” It hurt Catra to brush off Adora’s arm, but she did it anyway. “I can handle Shadow Weaver. I’m not weak.”

“Well, if you say so,” Adora replied, turning her gaze back to Catra’s wrist. Immediately Catra leaned back into Adora’s touch, her familiar warmth a reminder of the only thing keeping Catra tied to the Horde.

When Adora finished, Catra rolled away to the foot of the bunk. Adora turned around to join her, returning to Catra like she always did, and Catra turned to face her, comforted by the knowledge of Adora as the one constant in her life. Regardless of what she went through in training, or what Shadow Weaver did to her, Catra would always have Adora to take her side, to bandage her wounds, to stay up late into the night talking.

Catra looked back now, with the benefit of hindsight, and underneath the new hurt returning from the reopened wound of Adora’s betrayal she felt just a tinge of happiness. A different Catra might have called that certainty and faith in Adora weakness, but in looking through her memories Catra had realised that even if trusting Adora was a weakness, it was at least a weakness that had made her happy, and she wouldn’t trade those experiences for all the Force Captain badges in the world. Even if her relationship with Adora was confined to the past, Catra was happy with how it had played out, and she didn’t regret what had happened between them.

Back in the Horde, Adora now sat closer and closer to Catra on the end of the bed, eyes flitting nervously around the room to check that it was empty. When she was sure no one else was in the barracks resting early, she leaned in even closer to Catra, her wide eyes meeting Catra’s and her breath brushing against Catra’s lips.

“Hey, Catra,” she spoke, still in a whisper. “I heard about this thing from the older cadets, something they’d done. It’s called kissing, and it’s supposed to be really nice. Maybe we should try it.”

“Kissing?” Catra wrinkled her nose. “What’s that, a new sparring move?”

“No, no. I saw one of them doing it. It’s… it’s like this,” Adora said, and leaned in to awkwardly push her lips against Catra’s.

Catra had no idea what Adora was doing. For a few seconds they just stayed there, their lips pressed together. It wasn’t so bad — Adora’s lips were soft, and she tasted like the better kind of ration bars that they’d been served for dinner earlier. Adora started to move her lips, and put her hands up into Catra’s hair to steady herself, and Catra started to move her lips to match the rhythm of Adora’s, and Adora pulled Catra back down onto the bed, and the memory in Catra’s head became slightly hazy.

At some point Catra pulled away, instead deciding to gaze down at Adora lying on the bed. Her golden hair had loosened from her ponytail and was currently lying splayed out across the blankets; her face was flushed and her rosy lips were slightly swollen. Catra couldn’t help the slight grin that played across her face as she took in Adora. In that moment, she felt more longing for Adora, and for this strange, intriguing new connection and intimacy that Catra now had with Adora, than for anything else.

The Horde had always taught the cadets not to form close relationships with their fellow cadets, outside of cordial teamwork. 

Catra was never one to follow the rules.

“That… that was nice,” Adora breathed, as Catra lay back down onto the bed beside her. 

“Yeah,” Catra said in reply, her own hair loose from her headband and brushing against her cheek. Slowly and tenderly, Adora reached out a hand to push away a strand of Catra’s thick brown hair and tuck it back behind her ear. Despite the seeming triviality of the gesture, Catra could almost taste the unspoken emotion in Adora’s touch; the ghost of her fingers against Catra’s cheek was like a love letter. 

Catra wished she could just burrow her way into that touch and into Adora’s gentleness and care. But, since she couldn’t, she did the next best thing, and leaned her head against Adora’s cheek. For a while, they both just sat there, in comfortable silence, where Catra felt like she had finally returned home.

***

A harsh crunch startled Catra from her reverie, snapping her back to reality, and she realised again where she was: Horde Prime’s ship, as far from home as she had ever been. Her power and security at the Horde was gone and Adora would most likely never speak to her again, let alone kiss her as tenderly as she did back in those simple, beautiful times before She-Ra. Catra had suppressed her memories of those times so much that she’d forgotten how good it had been to live through them.

Catra would most likely have spent longer dwelling on that past, on all her regrets and nostalgia-tinted memories, if not for that other Catra; the determined, stone-hearted Catra who had sprung up, fully formed in armour like an ancient goddess, around the vulnerable remains of her old heart, and scoffed at reminiscence. 

She had a job to do. Horde Prime was so far treating her as a tenuous ally, and she still had knowledge of Hordak’s confidential battle plans and strategies. If anyone was well equipped enough to take down Horde Prime from the inside, it was her. 

Catra returned her gaze to the window she had been absent-mindedly staring out of, taking in the full view of Etheria it provided. It was far smaller from this height than she’d previously realised, even when she was trying to conquer its entire surface; small, but not insignificant, as it was currently surrounded by Horde Prime’s armada of ships. What a place to call home — except it wasn’t Catra’s home, not fully. Instead, her real home was somewhere on the surface below, and Catra longed to return to her so badly it ached. She had nothing on Horde Prime’s ship, but she had everything down there.


End file.
